Our Hero Academia: Chapter 14
Eye of The Beholder Class had ended as Griselle finished packing up the remainder of her items. Granted, she thought mostly about how she'd train for the Sports Festival. Unlike a lot of people, her quirk wasn't a simple use it long enough and it get's stronger. She had to adapt, push herself by using her sight and mind. That's not something that's simply done like lifting weights and throwing jabs. She needed someone who could challenge her vision, an illusionist. "Hey, Izanagi. Do you have a minute?" After class Izanagi had rocked back in his seat, while he enjoyed his and Zenji's back and forth he had started to think about what he would do for training. His quirk could only take him so far, and while his physical prowess was amazing, he needed to find a way to make his quirk more intense. Hearing his name he turned toward it. "Griselle? Yeah what's up?" He thought for a moment about making a comment about her and Zenji but decided against it. Griselle knew she and Izanagi's quirk's were foils to one another. They were effective counters to the other. "I was wondering if you'd want to train for the Sports Festival with me." Izanagi was actually quite stunned at the offer. He knew that he was on good terms with most of his classmates, but didn't expect anyone to ask to train with him, let alone one of his best friends girlfriends. "Umm. Yeah sure thing. Can I ask why?" She pulled out her notepad which showed numerous sketches of all of the class. She took her pen and began to point at the images. Guiding Izanagi's attention as she spoke. "After doing some research. I found that you and I would be the best match for training." She moved her pen to point at the information she'd wrote on how their training would pan out. "As you see, my quirk's mostly pointed toward's my eyesight. Something your illusions can hinder. However, due to my quirk I can distinguish you're illusions from the actual you the way they are now. Basically, your illusions will force me to have to improve my sight and by extension my quirk, while my quirk would ultimately force you to make your illusions more and more realistic as the training goes. Therefor, we both effectively push each other's limits, forcing each other to go beyond what we can do now." Izanagi thought for a second at what the girl said. She was right after all, their quirks would force them to improve, like iron sharpening iron. "Alright. But I have a question. Is this the real me?" As he spoke he pointed past her, to what she would see as a near perfect illusion of him eating a candy bar. "Or me?" Spoke the Illusion. Griselle's pupil's shrank as she gazed at the Izanagi in front of her. She'd activated her quirk. Looking at him, she already knew the answer. Her mind flooded with details on Izanagi's quirk. She pointed at the Izanagi before her. "Knock it off, this is my only way of telling you and you're illusions apart. And it's inefficient. I can't spend time looking each of them in the eye to figure out which is which." Griselle gave him a piece of paper with an address on it. "5 p.m" Izanagi looked at the piece of paper and then looked back at her, his illusion having dissipater as she had chosen the correct Izanagi. "5 p.m." He said in confirmation, standing up to leave. 4:30 p.m At Griselle's House Izanagi stood at his training partners house, dressed in his typical black suit and red undershirt. He rung the doorbell at first and waited, taking a step back. Giving her enough room to open the door and spot him. Griselle came to the door, opening it without looking out the peephole. She was dressed in a casual gym attire, shorts and white t-shirt. She was surprised to see him show up so soon, "You're really early, like 30 minutes early." She held the door open, inviting him inside. "There's some cookies on the table over there if you want some." She pointed over into the dining room, scurrying up the stairs which were the first thing anyone whom entered the house would see. She turned back around, "I'll be back in a minute, make yourself at home." She headed back upstairs to finish whatever she was doing prior. He simply nodded along with the girl as she spoke to him, admiring her large house. Then again, any house was large when you lived in an apartment. After she went back upstairs he walked over to the cookies and picked one up. "Did you make these yourself!?" He asked loudly before taking a bite. "Yep, I enjoy baking. Pretty much my hobby!" She loudly replied back. She came back down the staircase. Her hair now in a ponytail, doing so to prevent her hair from obscuring her vision. She leaned on the wall that separated the dining room from the entrance. "Are you ready to start training?" Iza had taken a bite of his cookie before she had gotten down, his eyes widening at the interesting taste. When he heard her coming down the stairs he made an illusion around the cookie in his hand that caused it to disappear. Turning to look at her he nodded. "Yep. Do you know where you wanna go?" "Honestly." Griselle looked out into the backyard, which had plenty of open room for their training. Yet she also remembered other options. "We've got quite a few selections. Although since we're already here, we can kick off training in the backyard. Tomorrow, maybe we can try one of the training fields on campus." Izanagi nodded his head along with the girl as she walked towards the backdoor. "Sounds good to me. I haven't actually used the fields yet." "Me neither." Griselle stepped out into the large backyard, the flora was magnificent and were in perfect health. She knew her privilege, and didn't want to seem as if she was showing it off to Izanagi. "So, I'm thinking that you go all out with your illusions and try to trick me by making them as realistic as possible. Meanwhile I'll try to identify you from the clones. Granted looking each in eye is pretty easy, but I want to find some improvement for my quirk." Izanagi nodded as he walked out into the center of the yard. He let his quirk activate as he created multiple, near perfect illusions of himself, six in total. He put most of the work on one specific illusion, the one to his right, making it more perfect than the rest, he wandered if she would be able who were the illusions and who were the fakes. "Ready when you are." They said in unison. Griselle set a timer, she wanted to be able to do this in under 5 seconds. She activated her quirk once Izanagi gave the go, starting the timer on cue. She began to look them in the eye's one by one, effective, but this wasn't why she hated the process. She caught eyes and suddenly, the information on Izanagi's quirk came to her. But the timer hit 0 about 2 seconds ago. "Failed...but your illusions are very realistic Izanagi. I only wish I could find a better way to tell them from the real you." "Well. Try this. Despite my illusions being realistic, they all have flaws in them." He pointed to the one at the far left of him. "That one is missing a finger. And the one on the opposite side is about an inch shorter. Your eyes are your greatest weapon, but you don't always need your quirk to figure it out. Your eye can process things faster than you think. Try again." As he spoke he let the illusions change before producing four different illusions. "Look for the differences." He said quickly. Griselle gave a quick nod, setting the timer once again as she looked at the assortment of Izanagi before her. She had under a second to notice the flaw of the clones and move onto the next. Left arm a few inches shorter than the right. Another seemed to have it's eyes a bit too far apart. With only 2 left and 2 seconds to go, she happened to notice their hair colors were different by a shade or 2. She came to a conclusion. Pointing to the Izanagi second in line from left to right. "My bet is you're the real Izanagi." The timer going off as she finished her sentence. All except for the Izanagi she was pointing at vanished. "Much faster this time. Let's go again, but with a larger audience." As he spoke he created 6 other illusions standing around him. "This time, before making the decision, use your quirk." Griselle thought about increasing the time, but she wanted to push her limits, not stay in bounds. Leaving the counter on 5 seconds, it began to count down. Her pupils shrank as her quirk activated, she noticed one of the Izanagi seemed to have an extra finger, cutting him from the equation. She also noticed that two whom were side by side had noticeably thicker eyebrows than what she recalled Izanagi having. Bringing it to 4 Izanagi left, 3 clones, 1 real. Now only 2 seconds remained. Time counted and she didn't have enough of it to look them in the eye one by one. She didn't get information from 2 of the clones, leaving only 2 Izanagi standing. The time almost went out and she got desperate, taking a random guess. She pointed to the one in the middle. The four illusions faded away leaving the last two looking at her. Moving simultaneously, they pulled out a sleek black, pocket knife about three inches in length. With nigh instantaneous speed they ran toward Griselle. Once they were a few feet away they brought their knives back and slashed at the girls shoulder, a strike meant only to cut, not to kill. Griselle wasn't expecting the sudden attack, only having time to brace herself for the pain to come. However, only one knife was real, the other had to be a byproduct of Izanagi's quirk. Just a simple illusion. After the attack subsided, she could feel the sting on her shoulder. She looked to see a bit of blood seeping through the wound. She didn't come ready for a spar, but there was no avoiding it now. She turned to face the Izanagi's, catching eyes with the real one. She got into a combat ready stance, prepared for Izanagi to come in for another attack. "Come at me, Izanagi." Now she had to keep pin point sight on the illusionist, if she lost sight of him, then she'd have to figure out the real from fake once more. "I apologise for the surprise attack. In truth, I was hoping you would have been a bit more ready. But that isn't why I attacked. While my illusions aren't offensive by themselves, if I attack with them, then the person has to dodge them all because they don't know which is real. But you are an outlier for me, you can distinguish me from the others. We just need to make your reactions faster." As he spoke his lecture, he created more illusions around him, this time five in total, each brandishing a knife that they put into their pocket in unison. He wouldn't attack her with a weapon, he knew he may have gone to far there and would make up for it later but for now he went into a basic fighting stance. "You have nothing to apologize for, I should've kept my guard up. You're doing exactly as I hoped you would, pushing my limits." Although Izanagi had his illusions active, Griselle still had sight on the real Izanagi. Listening to his explanation, Izanagi was correct. His illusions could easily serve as a psych out on enemies. But she was ready now, keeping her wits about her. In return of his efforts, she'd now push him further to improve. "So, if you and your clones want to defeat me, I invite you to try." Izanagi smirked. "Keep in mind, my quirk isn't simply illusions, I control your perception." He let his illusions spread out a bit, all running at her simultaneously. As they moved they crossed each other's paths and mixed the order they were in. One of them jumping toward her with a punch. Griselle's expression changed in distress. Griselle had to start from scratch on finding Izanagi, deactivating and reactivating her quirk once more. She started to feel a slight headache, caused by the constant reactivation of her quirk over such a small period of time. It was nothing she coulldn't handle however. With the short amount of time she'd had, she locked eyes with the Izanagi. However, regardless of real or fake, Griselle knew that she had little time to react now. She threw forward a palm thrust aimed at the Izanagi's jaw. Izanagi stopped moving just before her palm landed on his jaw, and before his punch connected with her rib. He didn't know whether it was by instinct, or if she had found out he was the real one, but she picked him out. Stepping back he smiled at her, "That was good." Griselle gave a sigh of relief, knowing that for the moment at least, she was aware which Izanagi was real. "Thanks, you're foot work is also pretty good. And you show amazing stability." Griselle rubbed her head, the pain slightly growing. "Maybe I should lay of using my quirk a bit" She thought to herself. "Well it's taken me quite some time to develop my skills to this point." Izanagi's smile faded a bit when he saw her rubbing her head. It was likely that her quirk was effecting her. "Tell you what, I think it's time for me to exert some power. Why don't you rest for a bit and I can practice my illusions." Griselle nodded, a soft smile evident on her face. "Yea, I'll take a moment to recuperate." Griselle removed her glasses, placing a finger above the bridge of her nose. She began to apply pressure to the 'Third Eye', a pressure point known to help with headaches. It would take a few seconds until the effects actually begun. But for now she continued to apply pressure, allowing Izanagi some time to improve on his skills in a solo setting. Izanagi gave a small smile back to his partner and nodded. He stretched a bit and though about what he wanted to work on. He knew what the full potential of his quirk was, but he was far from it. "If i can make my illusions look perfect, than I can effect someone's perception enough to the point their mind thinks it is real." Was his thought on it. Clasping his hands together he let his quirk activate and created two versions of himself, he focused on both in an effort to make both look identical to him, although he knew it would be tough. Griselle looked on as Izanagi created more clones. She wanted to watch his progress, to see how well he could make his illusions. But his illusions would only cause her more headache. He let her gaze focus on anything else, diverting her eyes to focus on the trees. The birds singing in the distance. A sense of nostalgia hit her. Remembering a few weeks ago after the Battle Trials. She didn't expect this memory to be something that would bring her happiness, but for some reason it did. She didn't fight it, but further embraced the feeling. Her headache faded a bit, but she wanted to wait a bit more before continuing with the training. Izanagi continued with his illusions, but he was unhappy with just some clones. He wanted to be able to make a person's perception of their entire environment shift, and while he could do it, it needed to be perfected. Letting all.bur one clone disappear he focused on the single one. Making it near identical to him, fixing everh problem he saw with it.